Katrina Emergency Assistance
Kucinich gave the following speech in Congress on March 2, 2006:
Speaking during debate on S. 1777, the Katrina Emergency Assistance Act of 2006, Congressman Kucinich said:
"Mr. Speaker, as I listen to the debate here, one of the things that I keep hearing in this House is a question of what the role of government is. One of the gentlemen who spoke earlier would insist that all this is about is throwing money, good money, after bad.
"I think there are people in this Congress who actually believe that government does not have a benign role in the lives of the people, except as an engine to redistribute the wealth of the Nation upwards. This legislation proves otherwise. It proves that government does have a responsibility to step up when people have a problem. It also confirms the role of the Congress of the United States.
"We see in today's news that the administration was warned on Katrina. It didn't respond quickly enough. Well, the Congress of the United States has an obligation to respond here. That is what we are doing with this legislation today. That is why I support it. We know that so much of the Federal response to the economic security of the Katrina victims has been lacking.
"According to the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment is a serious problem for hurricane victims. But the evacuees who are still not back in their homes, and they number 500,000 people, to them unemployment is epidemic, one-quarter of Whites, one-half of African American evacuees are still out of work.
"The cause, Mr. Speaker, is not a lack of jobs. At the current time there is a labor shortage in New Orleans. The cause is a lack of housing near the job sites. The Economic Policy Institute found that simply returning home from the Katrina Diaspora makes a dramatic difference in those staggering unemployment figures.
"Unemployment rates fall among Whites to 10.7 percent, among Blacks to 11.6 percent if people have a home to go to. But the unfortunately indifferent Bush administration, through the now infamous FEMA, is compounding the unemployment problems of the hurricane victims. The Federal emergency housing effort located the largest temporary housing facility for New Orleans evacuees in Baker, Louisiana, 91 miles away from New Orleans. That is not a commute for anyone, especially low- income workers.
"On September 8, the President urged a proclamation to lower the wages of all workers on a Federal contract to rebuild the hurricane-affected region. He suspended Davis-Bacon, a 74-year-old law which requires that companies receiving Federal contracts pay the average wage to employees who are hired to perform those Federal contracts.
"He also suspended the requirement of having affirmative action plans. Fortunately, some Members of Congress became involved in that and offered a counterbalance.
"That is what we are trying to do here today. We are trying to offer a counterbalance to an administration that was not there when the American people needed some guidance.
"But today this bill will show that Congress has a role, and we have to keep remembering it. Congress has a role in meeting the needs of the American people and government has a role in the life of the American people, has a positive, a powerful, a constructive role; and we have to confirm that role over and over again with our work on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"Mr. Speaker, I am proud to support this bipartisan initiative to give the people of the Katrina disaster area some additional relief. I think we need to keep focusing on what is the appropriate role of government.
"Let's help people in this country with the resources we have."
Subscribe to this blog's feed